Library of the Surgeon-General's Office Correspondence

A Civil War veteran and member of the Army Medical Department since 1861, David Lowe Huntington had prior experience with the Surgeon General's office as curator of the Army Medical Museum from 1881 to 1883. He took over as head of the Museum and Library Division of the Surgeon General's office upon John Shaw Billings' resignation in August 1895. He left the Library on April 1, 1897.

Surgeon General Walter Sternberg found Huntington's replacement among his own employees. Major James Cushing Merrill had begun in the Surgeon General's office maintaining supplies for the Medical Department in 1891. By 1897 Merrill was a lecturer for the Army Medical School. A naturalist and linguist, he died at age 49 in 1902 and his potential at the library was never fulfilled. Merrill's successor, Walter Reed, also had his term cut short by an early death. Before the Spanish American War, Reed had been curator of the Army Medical Museum. Appointed by Surgeon General Robert O'Reilly on November 1, 1902, he served as director for only 23 days until his death on November 23.

Colonel Calvin De Witt, head of the Museum and Library Division, assumed the role of acting head during periods when both Merrill and Reed were too ill to fulfill their official duties and after Reed's death until Walter D. McCaw was appointed head in October 1903.